Talk:Eric Voegelin

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I find parts of your (chief drafter's) critique of Voegelin's overly broad use of the term gnosticism to be correct, however I think that some of the paragraphs have the wrong tone for a Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia should be an open-ended resource for knowledge, and not simply a receptacle for this or that particular thesis. In this spirit, I have added some language to the conclusion to attempt a more balanced approach. I hope you'll respect the variety of views on this thinker (and not assume we're also 'smart idiots'... ha, there would be some irony in that...). Anyway, the thrust of your viewpoint is still fully in place. Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to draft the entry in the first place.

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If you remove critical views on Voegelin, they will be reinserted. You must account for Voegelin's Gnostic conspiracy and not try to hide it. Nixdorf 16:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, instead of just scrapping you contribution (which I will reinstate anyway) isn't it better if we try to iron out a unified view on Voegelin's views of the Gnostics? I am not a hopeless person, so please expand you views on this issue so we can agree on the form of that particular piece of text. Nixdorf 17:29, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ernst Cassirer

Who is Paul Cassirer and how can you relate him to Voegelin?

Your text only mentions a certain "Cassirer" which I never heard of. I made a quick search in the Wikipedia to find him, and that was the only Cassirer mentioned. Please introduce the correct Cassirer guy, and if you have the time, write up an entry on him/her too as it is to me a completely unknown person. Nixdorf 17:22, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Some research gives at hand that you are probably refering to Ernst Cassirer, so I'm putting that in... Nixdorf 12:07, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Paul Cassirer is mentioned upon http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cassirer , as being some adept of Karl Kautsky. Now, upon http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/ , there is Kautsky's writing upon Christ as a socialist revolutionary, claiming that Jesus Christ was a socialist rebel, whose revolution failed to instaurate socialism, but otherwise created a time-enduring organization. This text is full of references to the Essenes, which were the elite of the Pharisees (the elite within the elite), which were somewhat like a monastic movement, with very deep occult teachings and occult rituals. Rudolf Steiner wrote about that, but I cannot find a reference about it. Cf. http://www.anthroposophy.org.uk/book/chapter11.html . One could look at http://www.google.nl/search?q=rudolf+steiner+essenes or http://www.google.nl/search?q=rudolf+steiner+essenes+jesus or http://www.google.nl/search?q=rudolf+steiner+essenes+christ to further investigate this claim. tgeorgescu

So, Kautsky was concerned with some Messianic movement (a movement which anticipated and seeked to prepare the coming of Messiah). This movement has many attributes similar to Gnosticism (as described in Wikipedia). Namely, it is (to some extent) contemptuous of material world and material richness, promotes a monastic way of life imbued with elements of ascetiscism (but not necessarly implying that one should not marry and have children), with elements of spiritual quest, and with an organization form similar to secret religious orders. tgeorgescu

Therefore, I guess that linking Paul Cassirer with Voegelin is not a priori flawed, since both were concerned with the political implications of some sort of Gnostic cult (Gnostic avant la lettre or apres la lettre) tgeorgescu

Critique of Voegelin's Prose Style

Again, in my usual diplomatic style, I would suggest rephrasing of certain overly polite phrases such as this one:

Assessing it is further complicated by a style which employs uncommon erudition while relying on a great deal of previous exposure to this knowledge on the reader's part. Moreover, Voegelin was often compelled to introduce new technical terms or new uses for existing ones.

Which in my book translates to: it was unpedagogically and self-referentially written, so it is hard to read. I know this line of writing is very common in academic literature, but in my opinion it is not clear and informative. Nixdorf 17:40, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The Gnostic Theme

Your invitation to further discussion is kind, but I don't believe this discussion would be fruitful.

Instead I return your generosity by recommending that you avoid the posture of authority on Eric Voegelin when your ignorance regarding him and his context is so great that you have never even heard of Ernst Cassirer. If you would like a more informed view of Voegelin, the three links I introduced will quickly lead you to all of the pertinent online resources. If he were still to appear wanting in your estimation from such a vantage point, you could offer an informed critique here. After all, it is not as though Voegelin cannot be faulted. Indeed, you would undoubtedly be interested in the criticism of Voegelin's Gnostic theme which appears in the secondary literature and, in fact, in the author's own work. However your critique is simply inaccurate as it stands now.

This being Wikipedia, you may of course have your way with my text.

Being elitist and arrogant will not help you dude, that part is ignored. I'm interested in constructive work here.

Please discuss the issues at hand and suggest better wording of the stance on Gnostics if you do not like it. You are simply avoiding the fact that you wrote up a large biography of Voegelin without outlining his philosophy. Your statement above gives the impression that his works are so esoteric that only certain people are to be informed, through his own writings, of their contents.

That is a consequence of the fact that Voegelin (like Leo Strauss in whose company on bookshelves he is so often found) has very little to say that can be put in clear terms and still look meaningful. Which in turn is why Voegelin (again like Strauss) is a "philosopher" read little or not at all by actual philosophers, though frightfully dear to conservative zealots.

This is an encyclopedia, so plese help us out with a rough presentation of his philosophies that can actually help readers understand Voegelins thought. If you do that, and include his stance on the Gnostics, I migh very well drop my harsh words at the end. Nixdorf 12:07, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Controversies around Voegelin

Any hope the expunger might explain what was wrong with these passages, or say why they are not controversies?

The writer of this sentence considers the idea that Voegelin's work is representative of a conspiracy theory of history to be ludicrous, so I suppose that is a controversy. Conspiracy theories of history are usually understood to imply, not that there are no successful conspiracies - consider the American, French and Russian Revolutions - but that history is determined by a conspiracy or by the wars between conspiracies. Voegelin does not think that. If anyone reads that into Voegelin they are seeing his idea of 'gnosticism' as a movement, rather than as a recurrent spiritual sickness.

More standard controversies around Voegelin focus on whether he was a Christian or not, and whether he was a political Conservative. The arguments for both positions are equivocal. Probably the truth is that Voegelin does not fit in easily within any pre-existent in-group.

To deal with the Christianity controversy first. This might seem irrelevant to many people, but as Voegelin argues that society is based on a perception of transcendental order, it becomes important for believers to ask whether he thought Christianity was successful or not. The arguments and anecdotes are best covered in Federici's book and Wagner's essay. It is true Voegelin believed in something which we can call 'God' (see especially the essays in CW 12) but that does not mean he was a Christian. He did at the time of the Gnosticism essay think that the advent of Christianity was important for world history, but that is possibly a position he later abandoned (See What is History). He considered Thomas Aquinas an important philosopher, but his attitude to doctrine, that it is useful but can also be harmful when fossilised, suggests that he would not be happy with any dogmatic Christianity. Anecdote suggests that he called himself a pre-Nicene Christian - ie one from the period before dogma become enforced. St. Paul is criticised as at least partly gnostic in The Ecumenic Age. He criticises churches both Protestant and Catholic for their actions and philosophies, and it is clear in the book on 'Hitler and the Germans' that he considers that belief in Christianity is not sufficient to make a person resist racism or state terror, if it does not effect them. It seems probable that Voegelin respected Christianity as the best symbolisation of the divine ground of being available to Westerners, without necessarily believing in all the dogmas of the various churches.

Voegelin's political ideas are equally hard to gauge in actuality, partly because he did not often comment on contemporary politics in the USA. In his youth, it was clear that Voegelin opposed totalitarian fascists, Marxists in general and racism. In the rest of his life he opposed classical liberalism. These are positions which could be taken by people of either the left or right. It is true that leftists tend to see some value in Marx's critique of capitalism and rightists tend to see some virtue in racism or think it doesn't exist or can be cured by ignoring it, but these positions are not inevitable. Voegelin was also probably an elitist, thinking that the divine ground of being could not be experienced by everyone, but needs to be disseminated by an elite - again another reason why epistemological questions cannot be avoided. But there have been communist and fascist elites, and even democratic and liberal elites. Voegelin's respect for order does not mean that he did not think being open to new visions of order was not important. So he had no dogmatic respect for tradition. Despite his acquaintance or friendship with Mises and Hayek he was aware of the now lost Conservative Critique of Capitalism, and was able to support government intervention in the economy. He could even make what sound like neo marxist statements such as: "When society differentiated into capitalist and worker, the model of the society of free, equal citizens was overtaken by a reality that pressed toward the crisis of class struggle. There arose the social-ethical problematic, which after long political struggles led to the massive introduction of socialist elements into the liberal economic structure" (CW 12: 96). Anecdote suggests that he like Walt Kelly's 'Pogo' cartoon strip, which has often been condemned as Liberal.

It seems that Voegelin must be read without adherence to contemporary political divisions, which probably have no particular reference to the truth of being in themselves.

Voegelins use of sources regarding Gnosticism

Can anyone list the sources Voegelin used on Gnosticism? I am under the impression that he never read or cited the Nag Hammadi library which is the primary source on Gnosticism, so that he rather relied solely on secondary sources?

Look in the preface and the first couple of pages of Science politics gnosticism. Voegelin used the best sources and scholarship from before the Nag Hammadi library's publication

Which ones? I was under the impression that he used, to a large extent, mainly the German philosopher Hans Jonas who's writings on Gnosticism are deeply colored by his existentialist view on the subject. Nixdorf 10:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I've taken the libery of moving your paragraph closer to the begining of the section as it interupted the flow between the gnosticism section and the next section. I've also expanded the secondary references. The issue of translation of the Nag Hamadi texts is probably irrelevant as Voegelin always tried to read the originals. He also apparently claimed that Quispel, the editor of the Nag Hammadi finds, was an "old friend", so he probably had some idea of what was going on, but who knows?.

Any direct knowlegde of Nag Hammadi should have been noted I believe, but needs to be confirmed. Anyway, very nice edit. Nixdorf 08:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, yes it is strange that he didn't read the originals, but it could be that they were physically inaccessible. As I remember it Voegelin could read Greek well, so coptic shouldn't have been so hard. Nixdorf 08:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

"And thus Nazism becomes 'gnostic' because it suggests we can have a 'pure' race when the racially inferior are exterminated."

Where did you get this - What is the base for this statement?

A critical comment on Voegelin's approach to Gnosticism

To make heaven on earth within history is to deny Devil's right to domination within material world. A Gnostic is fully aware of this scriptural standpoint (Sola Scriptura, see Isaiah 45:7 and http://members.home.nl/tgeorgescu/bible-speaks-2.html ) . Therefore, the Gnosis itself proclaims that one should not attempt to do what is impossible. It follows that a Gnostic would never seek to immanentize the eschaton, since this is contrary to his Gnostic science. Therefore, Voegelin is wrong that Gnosis implies imanentizing the eschaton. Perhaps only a crippled and flawed version of Gnosis would attempt such madness. So, the problem lies not with Gnosis, but with a crippled version of it, which pretends to be the full Gnosis. tgeorgescu

This would be consistent with Voegelin. The "gnostics" he was referring to, would in order to qualify into his definition of "gnostic", would seek through "secret knowledge" (untested and or unchallenged ideas read opposite of tradition) to either change themselves and or the world. To seek to improve oneself and or the world is not bad and not the problem. The problem is that knowledge is reductionistic and therefore "limited" (see Philosophy of mind). Hence the fallacy that the key to anything is strictly knowledge (knowledge alone has never sufficed), but rather knowledge is but one of many essential components. If you have read Jung you know this was his problem with gnosis too (see the Undiscovered Self) though Jung uses the word "reason" instead of knowledge. And I bet Richard Noll would relate to what Voegelin was saying [1] [2]. A gnostic in the false sense is one who reduces all to knowledge. Not everything is knowable. Since logic ends in paradox because knowledge is an abstraction of experience, by the mind. Consciousness to Voegelin was the mind interpreting the data of experience and then the brain via logic and reason organizing the abstracted experience (see German idealism/idealists-Kant) into ontological "data/knowledge/memory". Voegelin's bad Gnostics (though all who desire to reduce everything to knowledge are bad and "gnostic" by his standard) are cut off from the real world because they vilify it. They are not dreamers per say but rather afraid (according to Voegelin) for not facing reality as it is and not accepting the transcendent and or the "beyond logic" component of it.

To paraphrase Voegelin- gnostics oversimplify reality for the sake of manipulating it.

But as logic ends in paradox Gnostics then make things harder by trying to not face reality as it is, but how they think it should be, hence it is a form of Greek Idealism (see hermetics) and when the experiment fails the society (Guinea Pigs/mark whatever) falls into chaos and or violence. On a social scale (say if an entire society embraces the essences of gnosticism- to reduce all to knowledge) then you get World Wars and a global scale or degree of violence. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If a Gnostic goes political, he/she would indeed use his Gnostic knowledge, but he/she would prove far more tactful than Voegelin suggests, and would never attempt to produce a regime he/she knows from the very beginning that it will collapse, since it is untenable due to not taking into account the inherent evilness of the material world. tgeorgescu

This is conjecture and speculation. This is also addressed in Plato Statesman. If?? According to Voegelin gnosticism creates cults and establishes the idea that they are victims (hence elite/special/alienation). Gnostics believe (according to Voegelin) they are disenfranchised and have never been accepted. This duality of "us against them" is the very essence of what breeds the killing and violence that Voegelin states is a by product of the gnostics. Gnostics engaging in revenge and retribution for perceived past injustices. This is the very heart of the violence that Marx's poor against the rich and Hitler's German puppets to the Jewish conspiracy is all about. This is also why Voegelin attacks Nietzsche. According to Voegelin's gnostics the Jews and Greeks worship the devil and or demiurge who seeks to keep the disenfranchised repressed via conspiracy and the use of religion as a tool to control the individual. This very important point of Voegelin which is the most hardest to articulate is that gnosticism creates false knowledge because in it's core it is Utilitarian and Egalitarian and it believes that it is the truth already and that any truths that come in opposition to it are from evil and therefore to be undermine or ignored not matter how true. This is why Voegelin matched gnosticism with sophistry meaning truth is power, power is truth, truth is nothing beyond utility. Voegelin saw in gnosticism the expression of violence in how it responded almost pedantic violent like to criticism (read paranoia). Voegelin saw as the essence of Gnosticism the idea of a lone hero against the World who was ultimately a puppet of Power hunger sophists. That the gnostic was lying to themselves (read cult leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Mao). And they refused to face the truth of being and or their existence and or reality as it actually is/was (hence full consciousness through experience rather then to wake up via "knowledge" of an experience). Voegelin says gnostics as very violent opinionated people (ego driven) who engaged in destructive behavior and had no facilities to reign themselves in, this of course is consistent with Augustine and his critique of Manicheanism and how he lost control of himself (when a gnostic) by blaming the world or cosmos or God for his sins (hence ethical- antinomianism).

LoveMonkey (talk) 17:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A Gnostic is aware thereof, and he/she would try to produce not the best regime, but the least evil regime. The perspective of cultural pessimism from the Book of Daniel, chapter 2, implies that as the time goes by, the worldly regimes decay and the political situation gets worse (therefore, progress is an illusion). This is just another argument that a Gnostic would project the regime which is probable to bring the least increment of evilness and decay, instead of seeking to make true some vision from never-never land. tgeorgescu

This is flawed (see Political religion). Voegelin covers both sides, hence if the gnostic believes that there is no God then religion is a repressive evil that must be stamped out (see see post atheism). If the gnostic believes that the Jews and Greeks worship the devil then they (Jews and Greeks) are a bain that ultimately must be dealt with. If the gnostic believes their groups victims they will seek through whatever means to right any percieved wrongs. If the gnostic believes that the cosmos is fallen and that it is useless to try and repair it then they run the risk of psychosis. If the gnostic believes that they can fix correct and or properly lead society but then fail then what will they do to maintain their power? They will do what every human does. Because gnostic or not human is human. The flaw of human is not corrected by knowledge. Anymore then a junkie can think or reason himself out of addiction. There is no piece of knowledge or information you can give the junkie that will empower him to not be a junkie anymore. The junkie has to find the ability to stop themselves or they will die. Such are many examples of how Jungian psychology fails and the concept of gnosis is not all encompassing. To paraphrase Voegelin cults are cults

rather that be political, religious and racists, whatever.

LoveMonkey (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

To quote Fritjof Capra, "In the East, a virtuous person is therefore not one who undertakes the impossible task of striving for the good and eliminating the bad, but rather one who is able to maintain a dynamic balance between good and bad." The Tao of Physics, p. 158, III. The Paralllels, Flamingo, HarperCollins, London 1991. tgeorgescu

So why is there a dispute now in the section of Voegelin and Gnosticism since this quote really isn't addressing anything.LoveMonkey (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)